Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Year of the Book Day 35 - John Irving

"Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel." John Irving

When a book or a poem or for that matter, any piece of writing etches itself inside you, what you often remember is not specificities but defining essence, like the memory of a peppercorn bursting in your mouth or the smell of your mother…

So it is with The World According to Garp and Cider House Rules. The residual memory is of a sad sweetness, of landscapes people as damaged and dysfunctional as any of us but never desolate because of Irving’s take on life, which if it wasn’t so funny, would be devastating.